Disputed Question Series

​In partnership with the School of Law, Civitas Institute, Center for Law and Democracy and The Thomas Jefferson Center, the next event in the School of Civic Leadership's "Disputed Question" series will put Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston in conversation with the eminent legal scholar John Yoo to examine a provocative constitutional issue: whether the modern American presidency is a form of constitutional dictatorship. Moderated by distinguished UT Austin Law professor Sanford Levinson, the discussion will revisit long-standing debates about the scope of executive power in the United States. Drawing on the arguments of Clinton Rossiter’s classic 1948 study Constitutional Dictatorship, the discussion will explore how war powers, foreign policy authority, and decades of expansive congressional delegation have shaped the modern presidency. Together, the speakers will assess whether describing the contemporary American president as a “constitutional dictator” is merely rhetorical—or a descriptively accurate account of an office that may have been designed, from the beginning, to wield extraordinary authority.